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What Icasa will focus on in MultiChoice-SABC ‘must carry’ TV dispute
The SABC says the must-carry regulations rob it of revenue; MultiChoice says it's irrational to expect it to pay for them
An impact assessment will be conducted on the contentious regulations that allow pay-TV operators to carry the SABC’s free-to-air channels free. This is in the wake of MultiChoice’s opposition to the public broadcaster’s calls for operators to pay a fee for the service. In 2008 the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) introduced "must carry" regulations, compelling pay-TV companies to carry the SABC’s free-to-air channels — SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 — in support of universal access. MultiChoice says it is irrational for the public broadcaster to now require its DStv bouquet to pay to carry the three channels as they are freely available in any case. But the SABC argues MultiChoice has benefited from the channels on DStv, claiming they are among the most watched on the platform. In a letter to Icasa in 2017, SABC chair Bongumusa Makhathini said that the "must carry" rules had "had a serious impact on the SABC from a potential revenue point of view".
The public broadc...
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